Authors

Abstract

The debate surrounding the initial appearance of anatomically modern Homo sapiens and subsequent evolution into modern Homo sapiens sapienshad centered on two competing hypotheses. The “Multiregional Continuity Model” and the “Out of Africa 2 Model”. Evidence for these models has primarily come from analyses of pertinent fossilized remains and genetic data. White et al. (2003) suggests that their multivariate analyses of one of three fossil crania, from the Herto formation of the Bouri member in the Middle Awash, Ethiopia, places the fossil intermediate between Archaic Homo sapiens (i.e.Kabwe) and more modern Homo sapiens (i.e.Qafzeh and Skhul V). This, White et al. (2003) suggests, would be strong evidence for the “Out of Africa 2 Model”, albeit in a somewhat gradualistic sense. The purpose of the study undertaken here is to reanalyze the Herto specimen (i.e. BOU-VP-16-1) using c-score (i.e. shape) principal coordinates and Euclidean distances to determine if the Herto cranium is morphometrically intermediate between Archaic Homo sapiens and more modern Homo sapiens sapiens. Our results indicate that indeed these data can be reduced to show that the Herto cranium is relatively similar to our Upper Paleolithic Homo sapiens sample, Skhul V, and our modern Homo sapiens sapiens sample, in that order. Furthermore, our analyses suggest that Herto is not intermediate between Kabwe and more modern Homo sapiens.